Couldn't the wish be formulated by the character as something on the line of "I wish never to miss my opponents with my sword?"
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Matteo TassinariAug 23 '12 at 12:27

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@MatteoTassinari A D&D miss doesn't mean the character failed to hit - it means he failed to penetrate. Again, such a wording would have NO mechanical effect - just a narrative one. He'd still find himself not penetrating, and thus not doing any damage.
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aramisAug 24 '12 at 0:48

I see. Thanks for the insight =) I've been a D&D player for many years now, though I must admit I never faced myself with a similar wish.
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Matteo TassinariAug 24 '12 at 6:49

To be clear, it CAN mean that he failed to hit, OR that he hit but failed to penetrate. That's why both dexterity and armor contribute to armor class - a creature can either jump out of the way (a clean miss) or put on more armor to absorb the weapon's force before it gets to the squishy bits. If you wished to never miss, it might improve your fighting marginally - removing the chance to miss and leaving only the option of not penetrating armor. As a DM, though, I could easily twist that wish by causing you to never be able to STOP hitting an enemy - even in rest and diplomatic situations.
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ilinamoratoJul 8 '14 at 13:13

Given that the OP is specifically interested in touch attacks, where you don't have to 'penetrate', what a miss means is fairly clear.
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the dark wandererNov 15 '14 at 0:24

In the original, pre-edited question, the OP tried to couch the out-of-character mechanics (rolling a 1 5% of the time) with in-character observations ("I summon a bunch of skeletons and cast at them, noticing that despite my superior skill, I still miss ~5% of the time).

The problem with that is that while the miss-on-a-1 rule is a relatively clear-cut and arbitrary "cosmic rule" for the player, it isn't so for the character. It's meant to represent (though not necessarily simulate) the vagaries of the encounter. So even if the wizard keeps a list of 1,000,000 attacks and analyzes precisely why he missed 50,000 times, he will see that those misses were because the skeleton had surprisingly held back for a second, or that he himself had slipped and missed the second between casting or touching, or any number of understandable, realistic and unsurprising in-universe explanations. I don't think you can wish for "none of my enemies will ever move in an unexpected fashion and also that I never miscalculate the distance between us while being fired upon".

But here's a twist: to take the normal course of events in real-life, ignore the regular and observable cause-and-effect and instead infer some sort of cosmic game takes a special mindset. The main problem with that is that if that's the case, then the wish spell is just as part of that cosmic game. It's possible that the gods themselves are, too. A powerful wizard who had gone down that particular rabbit-hole would have no choice, I believe, but to embark on an existential quest to discover what really makes the world tick.

I disagree. Even if there are "understandable, realistic and unsurprising in-universe explanations", a fixed number is still a fixed number. The pattern would be noticed (this reminds me very much of Mistborn).
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LohorisJul 8 '14 at 13:15

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The basic assumption in most games is that this pattern exists in the mechanics, not the story. We might bundle a bunch of stuff under "miss", but for the wizard, you have fizzles, and misses, and it-hit-but-the-guy-shook-it-off, and any number of distinctly different scenarios.
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lisardggYJul 8 '14 at 14:46

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And, if you count them all, you'll still match the pattern.
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LohorisJul 9 '14 at 8:14

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But you'll have to make the entirely out-of-play decision to group these exact events as a miss, as opposed to (say) rolling 1 on the damage die, which is a hit, but with almost the same in-world effect as a miss.
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lisardggYJul 9 '14 at 8:20

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This is a good point, that however doesn't apply in case the monster has less HP of the minimum amount of damage you can do.
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LohorisJul 9 '14 at 9:09

One of my characters made this wish, only she phrased it "I wish that my weapon will always strike true." I dig her flavor text. Copied it down, with the location and how much gold (put in a wishing well for fun sake).

Since I'm DM - I'm thinking she'll get what she asked for. Her weapon won't miss. But the specifics - that's the fun stuff. It could hit her or her allies some of the time, too. Maybe even most of the time, if it's the only one she ever uses. Check out some of the example "cursed weapons," for things such as this. The wish spell encourages the DM to be spiteful because they want to emphasize the "be careful what you wish for." It's just like a character making a deal with an arch-devil - it goes in their favor until the fiend wishes otherwise.

Striving for mechanics, I would make that run badly 100% of the time because it unravels the fantasy feel of the game. If they worded it to 'never accidentally hit their friends,' or 'never drop my weapon' as often happens with a botch, sure they could probably have it. But to tear at the edges of imagination by rule grinding, definite no.

Mechanics-wise, I don't think that wish is unreasonable. I personally try to houserule away the "1 always misses on attacks" rules whenever I get the chance, as I feel that having a 5% chance to automatically miss, no matter your skill, feels kind of crappy. If the player phrases the wish in a way that makes some sense in-game (for example, "I wish that my spells would never fizzle."), then I'd probably give it to them. I mean, the ability to hit 5% more (which is the most that this wish can get you, barring alternate critical miss rules) is absolutely on par with getting 15000gp worth of stuff, or getting +1 to a stat permanently.

While this is most definitely outside of the standard list of wishes, I don't think that a player getting this wish would be that bad.

There are better ways to house-rule away the automatic hit/miss than allowing a Wizard's Wish to break the 4th wall and alter something which doesn't even exist within his universe. For instance, one common rule is to have a roll of 1 count as a -5 (spectacular blunder), and a 20 count as a 25 (exceptional success) with no automatic success/failure. The result is a Kobold will never be able to automatically hit The Knight Who Is Pretty Much Invincible, and the Legendary Wizard of Ultimate Facemelting will always be able to facemelt a kobold even with the worst luck.
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doppelgreenerAug 21 '12 at 2:52

@SevenSidedDie: Maybe something like, "I wish that my spells would never fizzle.", while explaining out of game what mechanical effect he's going for. Honestly though, half of what would make me okay with it is the player coming up with an interesting wording that I haven't thought of.
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DuckTapeAlAug 22 '12 at 0:17

@JonathanHobbs: I absolutely agree, but if I'm not using a houserule like that, and the player could come up with a wording that was creative and got the point across, I'd be totally on board with a wish like this.
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DuckTapeAlAug 22 '12 at 0:19

@Vatine It doesn't say you have to screw the player over in the rules, and I prefer to give my players more than they expect, rather than subvert their intention. The rule you're probably thinking of is "You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the GM's discretion.)" The GM is sort of encouraged to subvert the wish, but the words "may" and "GM's discretion" are used, so subversion is not required.
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DuckTapeAlAug 29 '12 at 2:30

Can you? Sure. The mechanics of the wish spell, and even limited wish, allow you to wish for whatever you want.

Is it safe to? Probably not. Since at least 3.0 (and one can argue that this existed in a lesser form in previous editions as well), the description of wish has come with a list of "safe" effects that you can wish for without having to worry about side-effects. If you go outside those bounds, then the DM is free to apply "creative interpretation" or partial effects, or even deny the wish outright, and changing this rule is out-of-bounds on both spell descriptions.

That said, there are safe ways to reduce the risk of missing. If you've got the resources, for example, you can safely wish to reroll a missed attack: you'll still miss if you roll a second natural 1, but the odds of that happening are only 5%. If you could pay enough XP to cover the cost, you could even wish for a ring that let you reroll an attack 1/day (the psionic power Second Chance has potential as a model for this).

When it comes to things like this I prefer to deny the character his wish and then explain outside of the game why: if I gave it to him that it would make him the perfect swordsman, and perfect does not exist, for if you have nothing to strive for then why take up the sword at all?

However I do not deny the wish entirely and meet the character halfway. For instance, I would suggest to the player they wish for the ability to cast True Strike, and give them the ability to cast it a number of times equal to their INT modifier or some such adaption. Cruel but fair.

True strike has exactly zero benefit in the specific situation he is seeking to improve: if you already only miss on a 1, then with a +20 additional bonus, you'll still only miss on a 1.
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Matthew NajmonJul 20 '14 at 7:08

A compromise would be giving him a lesser version of what he's asking for, not giving him something completely unrelated to what he's asking for. The nature of the original request, and the explanation accompanying it, strongly imply that this character would gain virtually no benefit at all from the True Strike ability you propose. On top of that, he already has "the ability to cast True Strike", as a wizard of at least 17th level, so having him wish for that ability (a) is just silly, and (b) should probably just add it to his spellbook.
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Matthew NajmonJul 21 '14 at 10:42

Hi Simon, welcome to the site! Your answer is both funny and good DMing, but it doesn't actually answer the question as asked. RPG.SE is very focussed on specific answers to questions; I recommend editing your answer to be more specific. (In this case, your answer appears to be 'No, because any competent DM will stop you.')
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TynamOct 14 '12 at 7:51